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All Saints, Margaret Street, London, is a Grade I ListedAnglican Church. The Church was designed by the Architect William Butterfield and built between 1850 and 1859. It has been hailed as Butterfield's masterpiece and a pioneering building of The High Victorian Gothic Style that would characterise British Architecture from around 1850 to 1870.
The Church is situated on the North side of Margaret Street, in Fitzrovia, near Oxford Street, London, within a small Courtyard. Two other buildings face onto this Courtyard; one is the Vicarage and the other (formerly a Choir School) now houses the Parish Room and Flats for Assistant Priests.
All Saints is noted for its Architecture, Style of Worship and Musical Tradition.
All Saints, Margaret Street, is a Grade I ListedAnglican Church in London. The Church was designed by the architect William Butterfield and built between 1850 and 1859. It has been hailed as Butterfield's masterpiece, and a pioneering building of The High Victorian Gothic Style that would characterise British architecture from around 1850 to 1870.
The Church is situated on the North Side of Margaret Street, in Fitzrovia, near Oxford Street, London, within a small Courtyard. Two other buildings face onto this Courtyard: One is the Vicarage and the other (formerly a Choir School) now houses the Parish Room and Flats for Assistant Priests.
All Saints is noted for its architecture, style of worship and musical tradition.
All Saints had its origins in the Margaret Street Chapel, which had stood on the site since the 1760s. The Chapel had "proceeded upwards through the various gradations of Dissent and Low-Church-ism" until 1829, when the Tractarian, William Dodsworth, became its incumbent. Dodsworth later converted to Roman Catholicism, as did one of his successors, Frederick Oakeley. Before his resignation from the Post, Oakeley, who was later to describe the Chapel as "a complete paragon of ugliness", had conceived the idea of rebuilding it in what he considered a correct Ecclesiastical Style, and had collected a sum of almost £30,000 for the purpose. He was succeeded at the Chapel by his assistant, William Upton Richards, who decided to carry on with the scheme.
In 1845, Alexander Beresford Hope realised that this scheme could be combined with the project of The Cambridge Camden Society to found a Model Church. His proposal met with the approval of Upton Richards, George Chandler, Rector of All Souls, and Charles Blomfield, the Bishop of London. It was decided that the architectural and Ecclesiological aspects of the project would be put entirely under the control of The Cambridge Camden Society, who appointed Sir Stephen Glynne and Beresford Hope to oversee the work. In the event, Glynne was unable to take an active part, and the other appointee, Beresford Hope, took sole charge.
The Chancel, All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London W1.
William Butterfield was selected as the architect, and the site, in Margaret Street, purchased for £14,500. The last Service at the old Chapel was held on Easter Monday, 1850, and the Foundation Stone of the new building was laid on All Saints' Day of that year by Edward Bouverie Pusey. Services were held in a Temporary Chapel in Titchfield Street for the next nine years, until the new Church was finally Consecrated on 28 May 1859. The total cost of the Church, including the site and endowments, was around £70,000; several large individual donations helped to fund it.
All Saints marked a new stage in the development of The Gothic Revival in English architecture. Simon Jenkins called All Saints "architecturally, England's most celebrated Victorian Church". In 2014, Simon Thurley, the Chief Executive of English Heritage, listed All Saints as one of the ten most important buildings in the Country.
The design of the Church showed Butterfield (in Sir John Betjeman's words) "going on from where The Middle Ages left off", as a neo-Gothic architect. Previous architecture of the 19th-Century Gothic Revival had copied Mediaeval buildings. But Butterfield departed considerably from Medieval Gothic practice, especially by using new materials, like brick.
The Lady Chapel, All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London W1.
The Lady Chapel (1911), situated at the East End of the North Aisle, was designed by
Sir Ninian Comper in Late-Gothic Style, and was enlarged in 1971 by Ian Grant as a Memorial
to Kenneth Ross (1908-1970), eighth Vicar of All Saints (1957-1969). The Reredos is of Caen stone and alabaster, and shows The Virgin and Child surrounded by Angels and Saints. It was restored by Peter Larkworthy in 1978-1980.
Charles Locke Eastlake, the 19th-Century architect and writer, wrote that Butterfield's design was "a bold and magnificent endeavour to shake off the trammels of antiquarian precedent, which had long fettered the progress of The Revival, to create, not a new style, but a development of previous styles". The Victorian critic John Ruskin wrote, after seeing All Saints: "Having done this, we may do anything . . . and I believe it to be possible for us, not only to equal, but far to surpass, in some respects, any Gothic yet seen in Northern Countries."
The Baptistry's Marble Tiling.
The designs that adorn the Walls and Pillars owe much to Ruskin, who, in "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" (1849), advocated the use of Chequers, Zig-Zags, Stripes and Geometrical Colour Mosaic. Matthew Digby Wyatt's "Specimans of Geometrical Mosaic of The Middle Ages" may also have influenced some of the detailing. However, both of these favoured stone and marble, rather than tile, making the Interior patterning of All Saints very much Butterfield's own work. Ruskin, in fact, did not 'altogether like the arrangements of colour in the brickwork'.
Butterfield's use of building materials was innovative. All Saints is built of Red Brick. By contrast, Gothic Revival Churches of the 1840s had typically been built of Grey Kentish Ragstone. Red Brick had previously been used to build cheap Churches. But, at All Saints, it was chosen specially by Butterfield, who felt a mission to "give dignity to brick", and the quality of the brick he chose made it more expensive than stone. The Red Brick of All Saints is banded and patterned with Black Brick, and the Spire is banded with stone. The decoration of the Exterior of All Saints consists, then, of the patterns made by the different colours of the bricks used in building the Church. Decoration is built into the structure. This made All Saints the first example of 'structural polychromy' in London.
All Saints is also notable for its Interior Decoration. The Interior is richly patterned, with inlays of marble and tile. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described the Interior as "dazzling, though in an eminently High Victorian ostentatiousness or obtrusiveness . . . No part of the walls is left undecorated. From everywhere, the praise of The Lord is drummed into you."
The Stained-Glass Windows are limited in All Saints, due to the density of buildings around the Church, and are mostly located in the Upper Part of the building. The original windows were designed by Alfred Gerente, but his work was not held in high regard and was subsequently replaced. The large West Window, which was originally fitted with glass by Gerente in 1853–1858, was replaced in 1877 with a design by Alexander Gibbs, based on The Tree of Jesse Window in Wells Cathedral. The glass in the Clerestory dates from 1853 and is the work of Michael O'Connor, who also designed the East Window of the South Chancel Aisle, which depicts Christ in Majesty with Saint Edward and Saint Augustine.
Interior of All Saints, Margaret Street, London.
Date: 8 March 2007.
Source: Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by
The Baptistery, in the South-West Corner of the Church, is noted for its Marble Tiling, which features an image of The Pelican in her Piety in the Ceiling Tiles, a symbol of The Fall and Redemption of Man.
The Church's Style of Worship is Anglo-Catholic, "The Catholic Faith as taught by The Church of England", offering members and visitors a Traditional Style of Liturgy, as advocated by The Oxford Movement of the Mid-19th-Century, including Ritual, Choir and Organ Music, Vestments and Incense. Fr Cyril Tomkinson (Vicar, 1943–1951), rebuking a visiting Priest, who asked for the use of The Roman Missal, said "the Rule here is music by Mozart, choreography by Fortescue, decor by Comper, but Libretto by Cranmer". Masses are now, generally, according to the Liturgy of Common Worship (with The High Mass on Sunday according to Order 1 in Traditional Language), while The Office is still Prayed according to The 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
The Pulpit, All Saints, Margaret Street, London W1.
